


TJM Time Travels With Her Friends

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Series: The Other 51 [48]
Category: Various Fandoms - Fandom
Genre: Gen, hah guess those various tags are what i use for my shitpost fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-10-29 08:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10850700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni
Summary: A 1970s Cool Girl, a Good Christian Puritan, a High-Society Renaissance Woman, and a Mysterious 20th Century Lady all meet. You Won't Believe What Happens Next!





	TJM Time Travels With Her Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the meme chat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+meme+chat).



> I love all of you fuckers please enjoy this historically inaccurate self-insert fanfiction

Jennya brushed her hair into soft curls and looked in the mirror, grinning slightly. It was almost time for her and her friends to go to the mall, and she wasn't going to go out looking trashy. It was the beginning of a new era, after all.

The 1970s. The Age of the Youth, as she called it to herself. The Age of Environmentalism, the Age of Sex, the Age of Anti-War, the Age of Women.

But not the Age of Her.

She longed to go to one of those protests, to wear signs and rebel against society and the world. But she knew that her parents would in no way let her.

_At least I'll have my friends. And maybe when I graduate from high school..._

Jennya stepped out of her house and waited outside for her friends' car to come. As she did so, she heard a gentle buzzing from the bush near her mailbox. Hesitantly, she stepped toward it and knelt down, expecting some sort of a bee.

There was no bee. Instead, there was a bright glow, so bright it blinded her eyes behind her glasses. And somehow, it was pulling her to it, so intensely that she couldn't break out.

She tried to scream, but no sound would come out. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut and accepted it, trying not to cry in panic, feeling herself spinning, spinning, spinning...

...and arriving in a grassy field.

 

Jennya stood up woozily and looked around to see what seemed to be colonial wooden houses, exactly as she saw them in photos in her textbooks. Her first thought, unlike that of people in the science fiction novels she read, was that she had obviously traveled back through time.

She would need to get help from one of the people. But she had always been a shy girl, and now wasn't changing matters at all. Especially since she was wearing a knee-length skirt and a T-shirt, and women during this time wore long dresses and bonnets.

 _Dress up as a man, maybe?_ But she didn't know if she would even pull _that_ off. She looked too feminine.

Just as she was thinking about sneaking into someone's house and looking for a way back to her time, she saw another girl walking up to her. From a distance, she seemed short, about half a foot shorter than her, with long strawberry blond hair and a soft pink bonnet tied to her head. When Jennya saw her, she tried to jump up and run - she wasn't sure, but people like her were probably burned at the stake - but the girl picked up her skirts and ran after her until the two were face-to-face.

"Hello," the girl said. "Who are you? I don't think I've meet you before."

"Jennya of...House Benson." She remembered reading that somewhere, but it was only after the words left her lips that she realized that colonial America was not medieval Europe.

The girl cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean? I'm Patrice, by the way. Patrice McDouble." She curtsied politely.

Jennya curtsied back, not knowing what to say. In the meantime, Patrice tugged on her sleeve curiously.

"This is such a...strange fabric. And why are you wearing such short of a dress? You look like a woman to me."

"Okay, Patrick."

"Patrice. I'm a woman. Ripe for marriage soon, by the way."

"Sorry. Patrice. You're not going to believe me, but I'm from the future. The 1970s, to be exact. And there, women are a lot more...free. We can wear short clothes, we can party, we can date..."

"Date?"

"When you're romantically involved but not married."

Patrice's face was strange but intrigued, and Jennya knew by the way her eyes lit up that she wanted to be there. After that, both girls were silent, instead looking at each other unsurely.

And then Patrice smiled, and Jennya couldn't help but smile, too. They took each other's hands and hugged tightly, longer than either of them had hugged throughout their life.

"What's that?" the colonial girl asked suddenly.

"What's what?"

"That buzzing over there. My Lord, it glows!"

Patrice put her hand to her mouth instantly. "Mama says I'm not supposed to take the Lord's name in vain. I forgot."

Jennya ignored this and walked to the source of the supposed sound. And then, she saw it, too.

"I saw something like this when I came here," she told Patrice. "Maybe we're going back. Or...somewhere else."

Jennya, for one, was eager to go back home. But Patrice looked more unsure, look of wariness still covering her face.

"Well," she said eventually, mouth splitting into a grin, "let's go."

So they took hands and went.

 

"Whoa. My goodness."

Patrice was shaking side-to-side in a strange mixture of terror and awe, and Jennya awkwardly wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her. As the shorter girl came to her senses, Jennya tried to figure out where exactly they were. After a couple seconds' thought, she figured out that they were in the Renaissance. She explained this to Patrice, who understood nothing but nodded anyway.

"Are we just going to time-hop forever?" Jennya asked frustratedly, glaring down at the cobblestone streets beneath her.

"I hope not. I need to go back home."

Patrice's tone lost its terror as she looked around at the city, murmuring something about how she'd like to live there. Jennya took her by the hand and led her away. She didn't want either of them to be caught in historically inaccurate clothing.

But it was too late. A policeman shouted something in a language Jennya didn't understand. Without thinking, only feeling the pounding of her heart in her chest, Jennya yanked Patrice's hand forward.

"Run!"

They ran, Patrice holding her skirts up with her free hand, two hearts pumping terrifyingly fast. Somehow, they managed to find a tiny secret spot near an important-looking building, where they sat, listening to the proceedings above them.

Jennya heard the overlapping screams of a woman and a man. She poked her head out to listen and saw an important-looking woman wearing a long dress and lots of pearls walking with what looked to be her husband. He tried to take her hand, but she jerked it away, screaming in the same language. It sounded a lot like Italian.

She screamed again, and he walked away while she hissed through her teeth and knelt down. Jennya and Patrice had been spotted.

“We have to run again!” Jennya hissed down, but just as she and Patrice tried to make a getaway, the woman grabbed their wrists and kept them rooted to the ground.

“You are Englishwomen?” she asked in English.

“Yes. We are. From the colonies, actually.”

“The proceedings in the colonies must have been quite curious,” she said with a smile. “I am sorry that you had to witness my argument with my husband. Do you two need help? I am more than ready to assist.”

“No, thank you, we’re fine,” Patrice said hurriedly. But just as she and Jennya were about to break free, a policeman bounded up the street, still shouting.

The woman turned to him and reasoned with him in soft, hushed voices, still clutching Jennya and Patrice’s wrists so they didn’t escape. When he finally left, she turned back and tilted her head to the side.

“I told him you were my mischievous sisters who were coming over to visit me,” she explained to them. “Would you like to explain who you _really_ are? My name is Amelia, by the way. Amelia Saltmeme.”

“What happened with your husband?” Jennya asked.

“Oh, he was trying to force me to move out of this city when I didn’t want to do that. I shouldn’t have made such a scene, but it’s so frustrating when men think they can control me just because I’m a woman.”

Patrice nodded. “My father always tried to control me like that. Even my mother. I hated it.”

“Who are you?” Amelia asked again.

“I’m Jennya Benson, and this is my friend Patrice McDouble. You’re not going to believe us, but we’re both from the future.”

“The future.” Amelia looked at them in awe.

“I’m from the twentieth century, and she’s from the seventeenth.”

Amelia nodded. “I believe you. I think you two are the type of people I can trust. Tell me, Jennya. Tell me one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Does it get better? For the commoners, for the women, for everyone? Is it better over there?”

“A little bit,” Jennya conceded. “Humanity is always progressing forward. Maybe when I’m thirty or forty, it’ll be _even_ better. But it’s not always like this for humanity, Amelia. Things will change.”

Jennya was tempted to recite facts from one of her history textbooks but then decided against it. Amelia turned to Patrice to ask her something.

Suddenly, a mysterious glowing wind swept them away. Jennya closed her eyes so she wouldn’t get as dizzy.

 

They were in front of a tower. All three girls looked at it curiously, and Jennya couldn’t help but get the feeling that it was somehow familiar. She wished she could go home and look in her textbooks, though whether it was history or another subject she wasn’t sure.

“Do you guys want to maybe try and climb it?” Amelia offered. “There could be someone there. Someone who can help us.”

“Someone who can help,” Jennya repeated. “ _That’s_ where it’s from!”

Patrice tilted her head to the side. “Huh?”

“In my art class, we studied a painting called _Someone Who Can Help._ It was of a girl named Emily, and according to the legend, she was trapped in that tower – by her parents or her husband, I can’t remember – always looking for someone who could break her free. It’s that tower, I swear. If we climb it, Em might be in there.”

“Perfect! We can break her free!” Amelia burst out. “Let’s go!”

Patrice nodded, and they began the long trek up, clutching on the conveniently sturdy vines. When they got up, they were blocked from entry by a glass window.

Jennya reached out and knocked on it, but there was no answer. It was only then that she realized that she heard sobs mixed with screams.

A girl was indeed inside, hands squeezed into fists, screaming at someone behind the door. It sounded a lot like “I’ll never go anywhere with you, you monster!”

“Should we break the window?” Jennya asked.

Patrice shook her head. “We could get hurt. Let’s just wait.”

The girl finally returned to the window, and her mouth opened in shock at seeing someone behind it. Baring her teeth from the effort, she wrestled open the latches and let them in.

“Are you here to save me?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes,” Amelia whispered. “Yes, yes, we are.”

“I’m Emily Coldone-boys at birth, but ever since I was forced to marry Trollface Ragecomic, I’ve taken his last name. I only call myself that in public. Thank you so much for saving me. Let me get my things-”

She stopped suddenly. “But he’ll find me. I’ve tried to escape before, and he’s found me every time. How do you know he won’t find me this time?”

“We’re from different time periods,” Amelia explained. “And every time we find someone new, we travel through time. Trollface won’t find you in a different time period for sure.”

Emily’s eyes lit up. “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!” Almost like a wild beast instead of a young girl, she shoved all of her belongings into one small bag that seemed like it was being saved just for this day.

It probably was. She seemed like that kind of girl.

Just as they were climbing down, chatting and laughing and connecting in a way that Jennya had never connected with anyone before, a glowing wind grabbed them and swept them away.

 

All around the four girls were blinding lights. It only took a few seconds for Jennya to realize that they were in New York City, but it looked…different somehow. More futuristic.

She was dressed differently, too, and so were her companions. She had some sort of a mysterious device in her hand that said that it was 2017.

“We’re in the future,” she told her companions, and they nodded somberly.

Suddenly, everything slowed down and blurred into nothingness. Before them appeared some sort of a screen with moving pictures.

Jennya saw herself talking to her parents, asking if she could go to one of those protests that she had seen on TV so much. They nodded and patted her on the back, telling her all about the rules of safety, but mostly about how much fun she would have, and how much of a difference she would make.

Jennya saw Patrice talking to her family, absolutely miserable as she sewed and cooked when she wanted to be outside and making a difference. She saw her waiting patiently, then marrying a boy with bright brown eyes and a beautiful smile. They got married and ran away to a different city, and he was unlike any other man in that he let her be free. And she was happy.

Jennya saw Amelia staying with her husband. She saw them sitting at the dinner table, looking into each other’s eyes, but no love passed between them. Perhaps, no love had ever passed between them. She saw the husband keeling over, coughing, but nothing came out. He had died, Amelia would later learn, of what seemed to be food poisoning. And she was finally free.

Jennya saw Emily opening the tower window and creeping down the stairs, bag on her shoulders. She went to an entirely different city, where she found friends who were almost like family. Not a boyfriend yet, nor a new husband, but she didn’t really need one. She was her own woman.

There were so many different possibilities, and all of them would have come true if only they had stayed. But it was too late now. There was no way that things could be redone.

“Amelia?” a voice called behind them. Then, “Jennya?” and “Emily?” and “Patrice?”

The girls turned around hesitantly. And there, to their shock, were their parents, looking just as modern as them.

They ran over and squeezed them tightly, and the new team squeezed back, looking at each other and smiling. Their old lives were over, but their new lives were just about to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> LAST NAMES ARE NOT REAL LAST NAMES WE ARE NOT JENNYA BENSON, PATRICE MCDOUBLE, AMELIA SALTMEME, AND EMILY RAGECOMIC  
> Also @my friends sorry it's so bad you deserve better


End file.
